


The Body Snatchers

by Kamari333



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Couches, Discrimination, Enemies to Friends, Fluff, Fresh | Parasite (Undertale), Fresh | Parasite/Underlust Sans (Undertale), Gift Fic, Home Invasion, I Ship It, Implied/Referenced Prostitution, M/M, Marijuana, No Smut, No Tentacle Sex, Parasite Host Sans | Fresh (Undertale), Parasite Host Sans | Fresh/Underlust Sans (Undertale), Parasites, Soul-Searching, Tentacles, Underlust Sans (Undertale), Weed, face touching, no smoking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2019-12-28
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:27:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21995242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kamari333/pseuds/Kamari333
Summary: Written for the 2019 Secret Santa in Galli's Rarepair Discord Server.Lust and Fresh have more in common than anyone would care to admit.
Relationships: Papyrus & Sans (Undertale), Sans/Sans (Undertale)
Comments: 41
Kudos: 135
Collections: Kamari333 Gifts and Prompts





	The Body Snatchers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AnonymouslyAfraid](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnonymouslyAfraid/gifts).



> Merry Giftmas, Dooper! I'm your secret santa!  
> I know this wasnt a ship you asked for specifically, but I saw you mentioned you liked it in your intro and... I am a sucker for rarepairs.
> 
> I hope you like it.

_They were never meant to meet._ Of that, he was certain. But they had, and he couldn't stop thinking about it.

Lust wove through the crowd of the lounge room on the third floor of Dream's house, smile easy even as the thick wall of bodies split before him, avoiding him like a leper. What would usually (and even now, deep down, still did) sting with unspoken insult barely registered as anything more than an inadvertent convenience as he ambled across the room to the second pocket of avoidance in the room, breaking out of the throng of people to enter the open air that made a small perimeter around a loveseat in the far corner.

Fresh didn't look up from his gameboy, blowing a small bubblegum bubble as the tiny device made a few generic noises denoting an achievement or high score. His sunglasses, which he never took off, even in the dim light, spelled out 'CO-OL' across the two lenses.

Lust purred, sitting down right next to Fresh, leaving only a hair's breadth of space between them. He leaned in to look over his shoulder to watch the screen. "how’s your game?" he asked.

"better before ya showed up, kinky-brah," Fresh said absently, not giving Lust even a passing glance as far as Lust could tell.

Lust shrugged, unperturbed. "if i'm distracting you anyway, why not join me in a private room to play a different game~?"

"told you before, kinky-brah: if ya ever diggity-darn dare ta touch me i'll rip yo' spine out yo' mouth an' shove it back in through ya pelvis, feel me?" Fresh's glasses read out, 'YO-LO'

Lust smiled. "oh, come on, sweetie," he cooed, "ya say that, but really i think you're just mad that i've got a higher body count than you do~"

"...what?" Fresh finally paused his game, saving it casually.

"sure~!" Lust shrugged. "you're constantly trying to get inside people, right? have a nice, little taste of their soul? what, did you think we all wouldn't notice you were a bit different, sweetie?"

"...i guess i figured," Fresh answered, putting his game away with a false smile, "dat anyone who knew would be keepin' de'r distance, not coming right up ta me."

"ya assumed anyone who figured it out would have a reason to care," Lust corrected. "so tell me, whats _really_ got those colorful vintage panties in a twist about yours truly?" Lust waited with baited breath, watching the unreadable face with anticipation.

Finally, Fresh answered, his words biting for all that they lacked any genuine emotion to bite with: "ya just nasty, brah," accompanied by his glasses displaying 'YU-CK' in the same colorful neon as always, as blunt and honest as anything else Fresh had ever said or done.

Lust kept his face schooled to perfection, smile soft and easy, posture loose and fluid. "yeah. i can understand that." And he could, _he could_ , because he had seen the multiverse, seen what the rest of them considered baseline, what was expected, what was normal. He felt the slight breeze of the fan against his exposed lumbar vertebrae, his bare humeri, the peaks of his clavicles, and was all the more aware of just how exposed he was compared to the others, who wore layer upon layer.

Of course, nobody else suffered from the same mystical case of hyperthermia that he did. His condition was unnaturally rare throughout the multiverse, as if the very laws of nature were discriminatory against him and his. He couldn't blame the others their disgust, their aversion.

Perhaps it had been too much to ask that someone equally shunned might be less repulsed.

Lust stood up, making a show of brushing himself off. "well, until next time, sweetie~" he purred, heading back into the thick of the crowd that parted for him like the Red Sea. He didn't look back, and he didn't make eye contact with anyone else in the crowd: seeing the fear and distaste in high definition tended to do more harm than good, and Lust just used up the last of his emotional stamina for the day.

Or week.

Or until his cursed libido drove him back into the fray.

* * *

Telling time in the multiverse was generally considered to be difficult, not only because time never quite lined up right between one place and another, but because the anomalies that plagued so many worlds kept stopping and restarting at irregular, (aptly named) anomalous intervals. What felt like a few weeks to Lust could have been a few hours for one person, and a year for someone else.

One agreed upon method of timekeeping was to use a previously agreed upon base universe to set one’s clocks to, usually one that lacked anomalous activity (such as Dreamtale, or Reapertale, or even Aftertale if it was a stable iteration). Others kept their calendars by the pocket dimension run by the Star Sanses (although even this was controversial in certain circles, as the schism between Dream and Nightmare, as well as Ink and Error, left many to flounder, struggling to keep common threads with friends and family on opposite ends of the socio-economical grid).

In Lust's case, he simply wasn't openly welcome in (but never openly ostracized from) most circles, and had to carefully pick and choose how he kept himself connected. He ended up keeping track of multiple timekeeping systems, one of which was the Star Sanses.

By Star Sans time, it had been four months since Lust had last stepped foot on Dream's property.

Today was a festival, a gathering of outcodes and universe denizens alike, sharing culture and goods and services and just having a good time. It was one of the few events that the ones who could multiverse travel were openly encouraged to bring non-traveling friends and family (provided they were in the know about Multiverse Theory). Lust, of course, never bothered cashing in on that invitation, seeing the asterisks far too clearly. If he was treated as he was, he could only imagine how his brother would be welcomed, and Lust would continue to shield Papyrus from that for as long as his little brother let him.

Folding that aching bitterness carefully and filing it away for another day (somewhere on the other side of never), Lust shook out his vest and started to wander the makeshift streets lined with stalls and vendors that had been set up around the main house. The air smelled of various foodstuffs, filled with the dull roar of a thousand conversations and a hundred thousand voices all celebrating the joys of being alive. At first, no one hardly paid attention to Lust at all, letting him weave quietly up and down the isles and marvel at everyone's hard work. He managed to flip a few G onto a counter and anonymously purchase a few sandwiches before he could affect customer foot traffic.

The sandwiches were delicious. He would have loved to pay his compliments to the chef, if he weren't certain they would take it as an insult coming from him.

A few more turns brought Lust to a less active corner, as though it were sectioned off for quarantine. The hustle and bustle he could still hear and even see on the other side of the stalls that lined the makeshift alley was distinctly lacking, giving one more breathing room while at the same time leaving one feeling oddly bereft. Lust gathered the why of it quickly, its neon colors standing out where it sat at a booth, sipping a slurpee.

Fresh was manning what looked like a retro style lemonade stand, complete with crayon sign with cartoon lemons. The pitcher was full, ice clinking softly in a demonstrational glass that sat beside it, both containers glistening with condensation.

"and here i thought you weren't the social type," Lust cooed, strutting over to lean on his palms on the counter. The structure was more sturdy than it looked, holding his weight without any sign of shaking.

Fresh didn't move, but his glasses shifted to read, 'OH-NO'. "can't be social, kinky-brah. ain't in my nature."

"what made you set up a booth then?" Lust asked, gesturing. "trying to lure in unsuspecting victims?" He kept his tone light, only meaning to tease.

Fresh's glasses again shifted, but lost their display altogether, the surfaces oddly black. "nah, brah, inky-brah an' lil dreamy would go postal if i ate here, an' it just aint copasetic ta go 'round munchin' on another dude's grindage. 'sides," he tilted his glasses down for the second time Lust had known him, showing a cracked, pulsing white SOUL (held in the clutches of four menacing purple tentacles) in one of his eye sockets. Purple and black light wisped in a ring around the socket, unnatural and _other_ in its nature, in its intent. "dis is _fresh_."

Lust repressed a shudder, keeping his smile up to match the empty one on Fresh's face. "glad to hear you're still eating well, then!"

Fresh held Lust's gaze, expression frozen and unreadable even to someone as talented as Lust at the craft, before he put his glasses back on properly, the letters returning to spell 'HU-UH' on their flat surface. He flashed a cheery, near manic grin, showing off his gold tooth. "i could almost believe that, dawg, da way ya says it."

Lust felt some of the tension in the air ease. He let the words, the sentiment, hang in the air between them, before tapping the counter. "so i've been walkin' around for a hot minute, think i could buy some of this?"

Fresh pulled one of those plastic red cups out of seemingly nowhere, pouring some ice and lemonade into it before holding it out. "on da house, kinky-brah. first customa' an' all."

Lust chuckled, carefully curling his hand around the base of the cup, remembering how Fresh didn't want to be touched by him. When Fresh's fingertips brushed against his in the same motion he pulled away, Lust couldn't fight the shiver that ran through him. He smirked at the taller monster, then chugged the drink, head tilted back to leave his neck bare for view.

"...that was pretty good!" Lust could not hide his surprise. It was the perfect amount of sweet to mix with the natural sour of the lemons. "you make it yourself?"

"yeah."

Lust filed that away for a rainy day, setting the cup back down. "does a refill cost anything?"

Fresh answered by wordlessly pouring another cup, his glasses reading, 'NO-PE'. Lust got the feeling the stall was just an excuse to be there, not to make money, which made sense if he thought about it: Fresh was either bumming it on someone's couch or just took what he wanted, with the people capable of telling him 'no' without suffering some horrible fate few and far between. A large part of Fresh's initial appeal had always been his untouchable status, Lust just one more person wanting what he could never have.

He figured Fresh knew it too.

Lust drained the second cup, purring softly. "thanks sweetie. till next time?"

'RE-AL' flickered onto those helpful little glasses. "peace out."

Lust made his way back into the crowd, smiling despite himself. Perhaps it wasn't so hopeless after all.

* * *

"whassup?"

Lust looked up from his phone, surprised. He hadn't expected to see Fresh again so soon, never mind in his own home universe, in his own house. "jesus _funk_ ," he exclaimed, jumping a full foot in the air to land on his bare feet, landing badly on the ends of his overly long sweatpants, tripping and falling back as he clutched his phone to protect it from damage.

Fresh rocked back on his heels, looking down at Lust. "careful, broski, verbiage like that aint gonna fly, dig?"

Lust could probably cook an egg on his face, with how hot his cheeks were burning. He scrambled to his feet, hugging himself. "i was _not_ expecting guests..." He certainly wouldn't be dressed like he was if he had been, sloppy and drab and absolutely unattractive.

"no one expects the funky fresh vibes, yo," Fresh said, making himself at home on Lust's couch. "wuts with da ghetto look?"

Lust bristled. "i'm home alone and leather pants aren't half as comfortable, okay?"

"so why not wear that all the time?"

Lust rubbed his face. "it's not exactly conducive to picking up a date, if you haven't noticed. and i've got enough going against me that i need some kind of edge."

"what about a knife?"

"not that kind of edge, fresh," Lust sighed, finally sitting down. He'd been seen, there was no point changing now. "to what do i owe the visit?"

Fresh remained quiet a moment, before shrugging. "bored."

A little BLUE magic brought the TV remote to Lust's hand. "we've got netflix?"

"nice."

Lust handed Fresh the remote, going back to his phone.

"never did tell me whazzup."

"well..." Lust sighed. "my brother's out on his date, you know? keeps texting me all about it. he's so happy, now that he and mets are going steady."

"cool." Fresh answered, turning his attention back to the TV.

Lust chuckled to himself. He should have expected Fresh of all people wouldn't pick up on the subtext. That was fine. At least now he wasn't binging dramas and eating icecream in his pajamas all alone until he got too fat to fit into his jeans. Fresh coming over was probably a blessing in disguise.

* * *

Fresh's visits became commonplace, a routine (if calculated by Star Sanes time, or SS). He tended to swing by on weekdays at 6am SS, and weekends at noon, if he came at all. At first, it was irregular, a day or two a week, but by the second month of it, it was daily, save for the days Lust heard nothing from him (and on those days, if his activities couldn't be accounted for in the multiverse news, then Lust had a sneaking suspicion he was having a snack).

Lust was caught with his pants down a few times (or, more accurately, pants switched) before he caught on to the pattern. Lust worked the evening shift, so he didn't need to be dressed for outings until well after noon. He used to spend his mornings lounging on the couch eating eggs (cooked or raw, usually raw since that meant less chance of him setting something on fire) in his lazy day clothes, so it wasn't a big difference in routine, only adding a bit of quiet company.

Lust wasn't afraid to admit it was a welcome change.

"why ya eat all them eggs?" Fresh asked at one point, although his head never veered from facing the TV.

"i like eggs," Lust admitted, popping another deviled egg in his mouth. The extra mustard gave them a kick (reminding him of kissing Red a few nights back, a treat he doubted he'd be privileged to again, given how vehemently Red had reinforced that _it was hate sex_ , and _just to make Stretch jealous_ , and _he still despised him_ with a fervent passion).

"thought ya liked mayo," Fresh said, as much a question as a statement.

"well, what do ya think mayo is?" Lust countered between bites. "its eggs, and vinegar, and other fun flavorings. sure, eating the raw mayo is great for laughs but the egg is the best part."

Fresh finally turned to look at Lust directly, his glasses reading their default 'YO-LO'. The creature regarded Lust, unhurried, before plucking one of the deviled eggs and popping it into his own mouth. "...de'rs mustard in it..."

"yup~" Lust purred. "mustard seed goes in a lot of mayo recipes! its one of my favorite flavorings~" _Might even be a reason Lust kept being drawn towards Underfell types,_ even if it kept biting him in the ass (just as often literally as metaphorically).

"huh," was as much as Fresh gave back, turning his attention to the TV again.

Lust continued to enjoy his breakfast (not the least bit resentful to find it a few more eggs short), until he had to get ready for work. Setting the emptied plate aside, Lust stretched and headed upstairs to get dressed for a night on the town. When he came back down, as always, Fresh was gone.

* * *

Another few weeks passed, largely without incident. Papyrus (or Pink, as he and his brother had quietly agreed in the hopes of some far future integration) and Fresh had crossed paths only twice in that time. The first time was an accident, Pink running a tad late to training with Undyne, nearly tripping over him on his way out the door. Lust had frozen, a thousand scenarios where everything went horribly wrong crossing his mind at once, only to see his brother fuss over Fresh, apologize for not being able to stay and get to know him, and worry over him catching a cold. Fresh had stood there and indulged the fussing, expression blank save for his near perpetual smile. The second time was on purpose on Pink's part, him staying a bit later to give Fresh a gift of a knitted beanie and a scarf, both in bright neon colors. Fresh had accepted them hesitantly, considering them before tucking them away.

After Pink left, Lust couldn't stop his own laughter. "i- i am so sorry. once he gets it in his head, he isn't so easy to dissuade..."

"...pinky-brah likes me, then?" Fresh asked, as if he was struggling to understand. It was a tone Lust had become familiar with.

"yeah. he likes almost everyone, but yeah, he likes you. he thinks we're friends, and a friend of mine is a friend of his, in his book." Lust leaned back on the couch, relaxing in his baggy t-shirt and sweatpants. He'd stopped caring so much about how he looked with Fresh. He didn't need to drive himself crazy trying to impress someone who was impossible to seduce.

Fresh looked again at the door, glasses reading out 'HU-UH', before he sat down next to Lust. He picked up the remote, tossing it into the air like a baton dancer, where it spun head-over-metaphorical-heels until he caught it right-side-up. A deft click had the TV coming on, and Fresh pulled up Netflix.

"wanna binge something today?" Lust asked, rolling his ankles (which were a bit sore after the other night's activities, like the rest of his joints). "i'm off today, so i don't need to be anywhere."

"tight," Fresh responded, finding a series they hadn't started watching yet. Lust giggled at the selection: he never would have pegged Fresh for a Pokemon fan.

As the opening sequence began to play, Lust felt some of his aches throb dully. He rubbed at the back of his neck, pressing hard into the joints to try and work away the tension. When his hand began to cramp with minimal results, he gave up, letting his arm fall to thump softly on the arm of the couch.

Usually, on days like this, Lust would pop into Blookie's, join him in hotboxing his bedroom and lay on the floor pretending to be garbage together. That wasn't happening today, since Fresh was visiting. He glanced at Fresh from the corner of his sockets, then pulled out his phone to rummage in his dimension box. "you mind if i take a bit of medicine?"

"meds? like, drugs?" Fresh turned to look at Lust, glasses showing four question marks. "you ill brah?"

Lust couldn't help the quirk in his smile, hearing that tone. Fresh was... really good at acting. It was almost sweet, how he kept up the act around Lust even when they both knew he didn't need to. "not sick, just sore. _rough_ day at work last night. i'm all tight and sore." He pulled out a chewie and popped it, washing it down quick with a bit of water. He preferred brownies, or tea, but he didn't have the skills in the kitchen to do that himself. Good thing Blookie fixed him up. He really was a life saver.

Fresh frowned. "drugz be wack, yo."

"you only say that because they make the soul taste bad to you," Lust snipped back good naturedly, settling back to wait for it to kick in. "and i'm 'nasty' anyway, remember?" Lust even added the air quotes for emphasis.

"bad example for the kiddos, broski," Fresh insisted.

Lust felt his sore joints lock up. His smile tightened. "heh, yeah, probably. good thing there aren't too many around, huh?" He looked away from Fresh, focusing instead on the cartoons as he made his body relax segment by segment.

He could feel Fresh's gaze linger on him before turning back to the TV.

By episode four, Lust finally felt his chewie kick in. His body went heavy and comfortably limp, a fog buzzing pleasantly in the back of his skull. He started thinking about juice boxes, but nothing came of it before he fell asleep.

* * *

Fresh lowered the volume down on the TV, turning to inspect his host (and wasn’t that a loaded word when he was involved) more closely.

Lust was definitely unconscious, his skull slumped to one side as his chest rose and fell in slow, even patterns. Fresh waved his hand in front of Lust's face, snapping his fingers to be certain the other was out cold. When he didn't get a response, he shifted closer, tilting Lust's head slowly this way and that.

Lust had been correct in his observation: Fresh's distaste for him had been many-fold (his job, his reputation, his lewd jokes, his immodest apparel, his constant attempts to engage everyone he could convince in coitus), but the biggest had been just how unsavory he was as a host: Lust was several degrees too warm even on a good day, and constantly stank of a chemical that made Fresh terribly uneasy. That wasn't to say he _couldn't_ use Lust as a host (because he could), but it was less than ideal.

Still, the comment about how he and Lust were not unalike had nagged at Fresh. He had not understood the reasoning, so he had started to observe Lust. Fresh was intelligent. He caught on to the similarities: how like him, Lust seemed to be trying to keep existing, because apparently there was something about him that made him sick without regular sex (seeing the usually spirited skeleton lain low had been an interesting experience). They both required using the bodies of others to survive. 

Furthermore, based on what limited knowledge Fresh had on the matter, Lust was less than pleased with the whole sordid affair, walking away from his rendezvous with gritted teeth and distant eyelights that lacked the focus of a creature whose thoughts were on the present.

Fresh, of course, felt nothing, being a creature that lacked a soul of his own to feel _with_ beyond primal fear, pain, hunger, and the occasional curiosity that largely went unindulged. This time, however, the mere insinuation of there being any creature even remotely like himself had Fresh driven to know.

And sure enough, he had found Lust's claims held weight.

Lust made a soft noise, body shifting to the side, towards Fresh, until his negligible weight was fully against him. Fresh let go of his chin, arm going around his neck instead, settling to hang over his shoulder.

The more he hung around him, the more Fresh realized just how much about Lust was oversimplified by the rumors and gossip he had eavesdropped in on. Lust was a prostitute, sure, but there was more to his character than his choice in career: his whole life wasn't about the almighty orgasm. Lust was careful not to bring things up around the few children he came across, engaging with them in a way Fresh could only describe as PC. Lust dressed down in lazy clothes on his off days. Lust liked eggs and mustard and mayonnaise and was constantly making jokes at his own expense.

The most interesting thing about interacting with Lust was that he didn't speak to Fresh's host, like most others did, but rather spoke to _Fresh_. He recognized that Fresh was the parasite, the creature living inside a house of bone and dust and magic, who couldn't feel and couldn't be expected to understand or be understood.

There was something freeing about that, about being with someone other than Error who did not expect anything of Fresh but that he keep being his rad self. He did not need to worry about putting up a facade of friendship, or repay any exchanges. He could take as he was driven to take, and Lust expected nothing in return.

Lust had settled under Fresh's arm easily, his smaller body slotting against Fresh's borrowed one. He had seen similar poses from other individuals, brothers and couples. Fresh looked down at Lust. He couldn't help thinking _how easy_ it would be, how quick, to end his pitiful life. He could do it, just stab him through his gross slimy soul, brush off the dust, and be done with it.

Fresh could end it all. He could wash his hands of whatever he had going on with Lust in the blink of an eye.

Instead, Fresh returned his attention to his 'toons, leaving Lust to sleep against his side.

* * *

When Lust woke up, Fresh was long gone. He'd expected as much. The chewie had worn off, leaving Lust feeling refreshed and loose. He'd had a bath and ordered takeout, ending his day on a calming note.

It was another week before Lust finally had the courage to ask what he'd been meaning to of Fresh. "can i see?"

Fresh froze in the middle of his playing with a rubix cube. Lust had never seen him solve one, but he doubted Fresh had ever tried to solve it to begin with. "see what broski?"

"you," Lust picked at his sweatpants. "the real you?"

The rubix cube fell to the floor. Fresh turned slowly to face Lust, glasses that unnerving blank. "ya wanna see da real me?"

"well, yeah?" Lust shrugged. "i caught a glimpse of something wiggling in your socket, back when you threatened me before, right? so, is that you?" He smiled. "this the part where you pull your glasses down and leap out to eat my face off?"

Fresh was quiet a moment. "...well, not now, ya ruined da surprise."

Lust giggled. "sorry. probably a stupid question. you're not really the type to show and tell, after all. forget i asked." He leaned back to continue watching TV, berating himself inwardly for asking such a personal question. Lust didn't have any illusions that Fresh had feelings to be hurt, per se, but the creature he had in his house was mysterious by design. Fresh probably didn't feel comfortable exposing himself for Lust's curiosity.

Then Lust felt the body next to him move. Between one moment and the next, Fresh was in Lust's face, and gripped his wrists firmly in both hands, pinning them against the back of the couch over Lust's head. One of Fresh's larger hands wrapped easily around Lust's slender carpals, pinning him with one hand as the other came to adjust his glasses, which now read 'YO-LO' distractingly close to Lust's face.

The compromising position had Lust's body deciding it was in a very different situation, warming up and making excess magic pool in inconvenient places (like his pelvis and his mouth).

Fresh grinned. "wanna see? fo' realzies?"

"y-yeah."

" _radical_." Fresh slid his glasses off. His sockets were closed at first, as if to maintain the anticipation that had Lust's breath catch and body squirm. Then one of his sockets opened, and from it crawled out a purple creature that might have looked like a starfish, except it had a huge eye surrounded by sharp teeth and four long tentacles, one of which kept coiled tightly around a trembling, frightened SOUL.

Lust had to force a certain amount of existential horror down with a firm swallow, and ignore the clearly distressed person right in front of him to focus more on the parasite. The coloring was an uncommon purple hue, not something usually found in nature, but Lust couldn't help snickering at how close the shade was to the LT burning through his own SOUL. He shivered thinking of all the terrible (delightful) things those teeth could do, admiring the lovely shade of red and onyx the eyeball displayed.

"fresh..!"

"terrifyin' right? yer shakin' pretty hard, and i ain't even done nothin' yet," Fresh (or the body he was controlling) observed aloud.

"you're _adorable_..!" Lust cooed, fingers twitching. "can i hold you? you look so soft!"

Fresh's grip tightened on Lust's wrists. Lust winced, wondering if maybe he'd offended him. "i'm wut?" The skeletal host asked, deadpan.

"sweetie, you're cute~" Lust insisted. He was already going to die, so he might as well go out with his integrity intact.

The parasite shrank back into the skeleton's eye socket, sitting there with three of its tendrils hanging out (looking more like an eyeball with growths that fit perfectly in the skull). The other socket opened, showing the fourth tendril still clutching the captive soul. Fresh leaned forward, pressing his frontal bone to Lust's, leaving Lust's face well within reach of the parasite, perfectly aligned to crawl into him.

One tendril stretched out, pressing up against Lust's cheek just under his socket. Lust squinted his socket shut on reflex, but his grin quirked up. "you _are_ soft~" The tendril stilled at his exclamation, before squirming against him a bit harder, rough slimy nuzzles as if to argue that he wasn't soft at all. Lust kept eye contact ( _heh get it_ ) with the parasite, trying to enjoy the novel attention while commanding his body to stop getting hot and bothered over it. Lust had negligible success on the second front, hoping Fresh wouldn't notice any indecent glowing or mess.

Eventually, the tendril retracted itself, and Fresh put his glasses back on. Only then did he let Lust's wrists free, stepping back to scoop up his rubix cube and return to his seat to play with it.

Lust touched his face, tracing idly over the still wet circles that Fresh had left on his cheek, grinning hard enough to hurt.

"not gonna lie," Fresh murmured, voice softer than Lust ever remembered hearing it, "really thought ya mighta been flawsen de'r fer a bit, dude. everyone else freaks out just seein' me."

Lust didn't doubt it. "well, i did have a bit of warning." He took a deep breath, squeezing his legs together and demanding he calm down. "thanks for showing me, fresh-sweetie. you know, without eating me."

"thanks for bein' wacked."

Lust let it end there, still rubbing his cheek and planning his next crafting project.

He was going to have a fresh parasite plushie if it killed him.


End file.
